Process Improvement

The Juran Trilogy: It is one of the best approaches developed by Dr. Joseph Juran. It has three components: Planning, control, and improvement, and is referred to as the Juran Trilogy. It is based loosely on financial processes such as budgeting (planning), expense measurement (control), and cost reduction (improvement).
Quality Planning:
The structured process for designing products and services that meet new breakthrough, goals and ensure that customer needs are met. The processes are called Design for Six Sigma or Concurrent Engineering. This can be particularly challenging for a planning team, because customers are not always consistent with what they say they want. The challenge for quality planning is to identify the most important needs from all the needs expressed by the customer. The planning component begins with external customers. Once quality goals are established, marketing determines the external customers, and all organizational personnel determine the internal customer. Once the customers are determined, their needs are discovered by:
Being a user of the product or service, * communicating with customers through product or service * satisfaction and dissatisfaction information, or * Simulation in the laboratory. The next step in the planning process is to develop product and/or service features that respond to customer needs, meet the needs of the organization and its suppliers, are competitive, and optimize the costs of all stakeholders. The step typically is performed by a multi-functional team. Quality function deployment and, Taguchi’s quality engineering, and quality by design are some of the approaches that can be used. It is important that the design team rather than a single department approve the final design and the team we compose of all functional areas within an organization as well as customers…...

Similar Documents

...Process Improvement : Prioritization and Scientific Approach
What is a process?
A process is no more than the steps and decisions involved in the way work is accomplished. Everything we do in our lives involves processes and lots of them.
Examples: ( writing a work order, conducting a drill, performing a test )
Who owns processes?
Everyone has a stake in one or more processes. Groups of individuals usually share in—and “own”—the activities which make up a process. But the one individual who is ultimately responsible and accountable for the proper working of the process is known as the “process owner.” The process owner is the immediate supervisor or leader who has control over the entire process from beginning to end.
A process owner may choose to be a team leader and participate directly in the actions of a process improvement team. Or, the process owner may decide to delegate the team leadership role to another person who is knowledgeable about the process. Whatever the case, it is very important for the process owner to stay informed about the team’s actions and decisions affecting the process.
What is process improvement?
“Process improvement” means making things better, not just fighting fires or managing crises. It means setting aside the customary practice of blaming people for problems or failures. It is a way of looking at how we can do our work better.
When we take a problem-solving approach or simply try to fix what’s broken, we may......

... PROCESS IMPROVEMENT
Process improvement refers to making a process more effective, efficient, or transparent. It is a continuous process. Process improvement helps an organization to view process value through the eyes of the customer. It helps to define, manage, and measure a process in order to regularly evaluate it using data-driven information. It reduces unnecessary business costs. The primary goal is to identify and understand issues in order to recognize solutions and implement improvements to stay aligned with customer needs and expectations. The Process Improvement Methodology serves as a common framework for understanding the ongoing nature of a process. It provides a set of phased activities for analysis of an existing process for the specific purpose of identifying improvement opportunities. Finally, it provides direction as to appropriate process management and periodic process review and evaluations geared toward ongoing improvement. The recommended tools you use will vary depending on scope of effort or size of process. Process improvement is an ongoing effort.
Why is Process improvement important?
All companies need to improve all their processes all the time. The ideal outcome is that jobs can be done cheaper, quicker, easier and most importantly safe. Experience also conﬁrms that process improvement brings a signiﬁcantly positive return on investment ROI and improvement in key business indicators. Process improvement is important to......

...Implementing Business Process
Management
Name
Budget and Performance Analyst
State Bar of California
Prepared for
Name
CFO, Department of Finance
July 30, 2013
Table of Contents
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 4
ABSTRACT 5
INTRODUCTION 6
Background 6
Business Process Improvement…………….….6
Types of Process Improvement………………… 7
Problem…………………………………………………………………7
Purpose…………………………………………………………………7
Scope…………………………………………………………………..7
DISCUSSION…………………………………………………………………8
Types of process improvement………………………….8
Six Sigma………………………………………………….8
Lean………………………………………………………….9
Barriers to Business process improvement…….10
Implementing Business process improvement
in the public sector…………………………………………..11
Requirements………………………………………….11
Where to Implement……….……………………..12
Results……………………………………………………..13
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………13
Recommendations……………………………………………………..14
References………………………………………………………………….15
List of Illustrations
Figure 1 Five Steps of Lean………………………………………………………….9
Abstract
This report investigates how business process improvement can successfully enhance the State Bar as an organization by reducing waste, increasing efficiency, improving compliance and boosting staff satisfaction. Achieving the benefits of this process improvement will allow the State Bar to continue its level of service without increases......

...MBA 6022
Strategic Operations Management
U02a1 Process Improvement
Natasha Lynch
Problem Statement
Growth at the Toyota Motor Company skyrocketed with the opening of new subsidiaries from India and China to the U.S. and Brazil, which led to a strain on the company’s resources leading the company to misread the market, produce faulty products and to build underutilized plants. A program known as Construction of Cost Competitiveness for the 21st century was also introduced, to cut cost at every stage, by reducing the components in a car to 50%. Further along more aggressively than the latter, was the introduction of a Value Innovation strategy which promised savings by making the entire production process cheaper by trimming parts. With these cost saving mechanisms, Toyota also sort to seek a targeted global market share of 15% by 2010, whereby replacing GM from its number one position. Due to this growth, foundational philosophies like safety, and quality were undermined as focus was placed primarily on volume. This resulted in a series of vehicle recalls from 2006 spanning to approximately 4 years. Toyota refused to acknowledge complaints of faulty mechanics in their automobiles, and was slow to take appropriate actions.
Background of Recall Crisis
In 1999, 3.3 million vehicles were affected as the engines on some models like the Camry, Corollas were prone to oil gelling or sludging. Another issue occurred during the period 2003 to 2004 where more......

...Process Improvement Plan
Brandi D. Clark
December 3, 2012
OPS/571
During the first portion of this course, a flowchart was established to show the process of preparing lunch daily. The main purpose of the flowchart was to provide the detailed process of packing lunch as well as identify areas of improvement within the process. The process was monitored over a 10-day period to see how much time is used solely to pack or create the lunch; this information will be used to provide the data collection element of this discussion. This discussion will also identify control limits of the lunch packing process, any confidence intervals involved as well as the effects of any seasonal impacts to the process.
In the data collection period, many areas were identified as areas of opportunity. Below is the charting of durations based on area of the flowchart, the total process of preparing lunch takes at least 30-40 minutes depending on if food is prepared.
Making food Choices | Getting Pantry Items | Wrapping food/placing in storage container | Selecting the lunch bag to use |
15-20 first 5 days | 20-25 first 5 days | 10 minutes all 8 days | 10 Minutes 4 days |
5-10 second 5 days | 15-20 second 5 days | 6 minutes 2 days | 4 minutes 6 days |
The focus here is to minimize time selecting food and pantry items. If there were a reduction in the time it takes to make food choices or select pantry items the process would having a better chance of being completed in a timely......

...Identifying Process improve
Toyota Process Improvement
Abstract
This paper will address the identification of processed used by Toyota Corporation during the accelerator crisis. It will identify the process used and the core problems with the process. In part A of the paper the paper addresses the issues that began with sticky gas pedals, floor mats, and pedal entrapment and braking issues on some models of Toyotas vehicles. The quality of the vehicle was the issue. In part B of the paper the issue was safety and this lead to drivers dying because of safety issues. In part C of the paper Toyota has a lean process established that had no buy in from employees or Leadership which contributed to issues with their product. Toyota thought they had implemented a learn culture that consist of problem solving, teamwork, and a continuous improvement culture to sustain lean.
Toyota Process Improvement
Toyota is considered a global leader in the automobile business. Toyota has dominated the market with accolades from several organizations endorsing the Lexus as well as the Camry on a top ten list of best cars to own. Toyota had the market share of 12.8 percent. Toyota was based in Japan in 1933 and was introduced to the United States of American in 1957. Toyota made a name for them for producing reliable vehicles with superb quality. This paper will identify several processes for improvement that Toyota has researched, developed, or incorporated due to the crisis of......

...Sasha Green
Capella University
Strategic Operations Management - MBA6020
December 6, 2015
Abstract
This document will be evaluating The Toyota Way process within Toyota during the time of their accelerator crisis. A problem statement will be defined around Toyota’s internal and external customer complaint responses and communication channels, especially between US Toyota employees and the authoritative management of Toyota based in Japan.
Problem Statement
To become the leading automotive producer, with a strong presence in all of the 50 states and abroad, Toyota developed a strong global marketing plan and employed more than 8,900 people. They “produced 5.2 million cars in 58 production sites in 2000, and by 2009 they had the capacity to produce 10 million cars and had added 17 production sites.” (Greto et al, 2010, p. 3). Any industry leader in the position of Toyota should seize opportunities to grow and expand while ensuring that the company employees, customers, and stakeholders all stand to benefit and are all well informed about the possibilities that lie ahead. Effectively, a clear and informative communication system must be part of the company’s organization structure.
However, the organizational structure known as the Toyota Way, a system designed to provide the tools for people to continually improve their work, though efficient and effective, could not prevent the accelerator crisis. Toyota’s rigid corporate culture and a hierarchy of seniority......

...resources, symbolic and structural. Symbolic leaders are those that can motivate their staff add value to their performance. A symbolic manager will exude energy and use stories, give awards and manage their staff by wandering around. They will show sensitivity to their organizations traditions and culture.
Applying the Appreciative Inquiry (AI)
"AI is a development process that, by its nature, includes motivation through positive reinforcement of the good. The process diffuses potential conflict because the best results of both individuals and departments… [and enhances] cooperation and enthusiasm for participation" (Liebler & McConnell, 2008, p. 355). According to Cooperrider and Whitney, by making some simple changes such as sharing information with employees and welcoming their input in the affairs of the organization, major change can happen. “The Appreciative Inquiry (AI) strategy focuses on discovering what works well, why it works well, and how success can be extended throughout the organization to further encourage change initiatives toward the vision” (Bahaudin, 2006). The vision and process for creating the vision is the needed energy to drive change within an organization....

...Process Improvement Plan
Jennifer DeRosa
OPS/571
October 3, 2011
Tonya Webster PMP, CSM
Process Improvement Plan
Statistical Process Control is a technique that can be used to test output from a process. It is useful in determining how a process is currently being performed and if it can be improved upon (Chase, Jacobs, & Aquilano, 2006).
As part of my week one assignment, I created a flowchart that detailed my weekday morning process. I chose this process because I wanted to find ways to reduce the amount of time it took me to get the kids off to school. By creating a flowchart, bottlenecks were identified as well as opportunities to maximize the limited amount of time I have to complete my morning routine.
This paper will again use the process identified in week one to complete a Statistical Process Control that can be used to verify my standard process is operating in a way that allows me to complete all of the tasks and affords me additional time. This paper will also outline the control limits of my morning process, the effects of any seasonal factors, and the confidence intervals involved.
Statistical Process Control
Data was recorded for a period of two weeks on how long it took me to complete my morning routine and get my kids off to school. I tracked the minutes it took me to complete each step of my morning routine and used the totals from each day to calculate the mean. On average, the time it took me from the time I woke up......

...Process Improvement Plan
University of Phoenix
OPS 571
February 10, 2012
Christine Thigpen
Process Improvement Plan
An inherent part of the service experience is that customers dislike waiting and this waiting influences the customer evaluation of service (Taylor, 1994). Kaiser Permanente’s business office is working on improving their customer service process time for financial aid applications. Currently the average completion time that a customer spends in the office is about 23 – 38 minutes from start to finish. The business office team made minor changes in their process flow to decrease bottlenecks in the process flow. The goal is that these improvements decrease the average wait time to 16 – 22 minutes. Over the past few weeks time studies have taken place to analyze if the process improvements that have been put in place have had a positive impact to the patients and staff.
Before changing the process flow the business office observed the current workflow to establish the current confidence interval. The observations were random including both peak and non peak service times. In addition, the same amounts of observations were made on each day of the work week. In total 25 observations were performed with the time noted for each case. The average observation time prior to the change is 30 minutes. This 30 minute time is the baseline service time that the business......

...Process Improvement Plan
Christina Scott
OPS/571
March 19, 2012
Ray E. Mowery
Process Improvement Plan
In week one of this course, the students were asked by the instructor to select a process that the student performed on a daily basis. This student chose the task of driving to work. The student collected driving times for four weeks. This paper will cover the explanation of the control limits, including calculations and data used to determine them. The paper will discuss the effect of any seasonal factors as well as the confidence intervals and their usefulness based on the number of data points. The data for four weeks of driving to work is:
| week one | | week two | | week three | | week four |
Tuesday | | | 26.58 | | 37.27 | | 28.47 |
Wednesday | 31.04 | | 30.37 | | 29.49 | | 33.4 |
Thursday | 29.59 | | 28.2 | | 30.42 | | 27.53 |
Friday | 29.52 | | 28.34 | | 32.18 | | 28.08 |
Monday | | | 31.37 | | 29.52 | | 31.17 |
| | | | | | | |
MEAN | 30.141111 | | | | | | |
STD DEV | 2.4752514 | | | | | | |
The average time to drive to work over the four weeks was 30 minutes and 14 seconds. This was calculated by collecting drive times for four weeks. This student collected for 18 days. The standard deviation for the process was 2.48 minutes. Using the formula tool in excel, the data collected for four weeks was used to calculate the standard deviation for the sample taken. A process improvement plan is a change......

... A software process is a collection of activities, methods and transformations that are used or followed by software developers to build and maintain software and the software related products. In other words, software process provides a roadmap through which software is developed. Since the existence of software processes, many software projects continued to fail even when software processes were used hence software processes alone are not enough for the success of the software project. Pressman (2010) supported this view by indicating that the existence and use of software process does not guarantee that software developed will be on time, will meet customers’ needs and will be of high quality.
The quality of software in today software industry has been given much attention due to increased demand for high quality software. The reason of increased demand is because high quality software plays an important role in modern business environment. As indicated earlier that software alone cannot guarantee high quality software, software process need to be assessed and improved in order to achieve high quality software.
Software process improvement is defined as a set of activities which leads to a better process which suite business goals hence it results with high quality software delivered on time. Höggerl and Sehorz (2006) describe software process improvement as a process where organizations use maturity to assess their process and to raise software......

...Process Improvement Plan
OPS/571
March 26, 2012
Process Improvement Plan
Processes exist in all organizations and the true success of any company is the ability to examine processes and implement an improvement plan. The organizations that strive to improve processes can improve quality control, increase profits and performance, lower costs, and create a more efficient organization. Implementing a process improvement plan requires management to identify, analyze and improve existing processes to meet new goals and objectives.
Taking the time to analyze a process, either in business or personally, allows individuals the opportunity to find shortcuts or improvements. Organizations find the benefits making processes more efficient, which results in profit, individuals will benefit by making life easier and more enjoyable. The objective of this paper is to analyze the process identified in Week Ones project of examining a daily process that may requirement improvement, apply statistical process control, determine the effect of any seasonal factors, and apply confidence intervals to the data points collected over the last four weeks.
Process Description
The process from Week Ones project is ‘Making Dinner’ during the week days. The daily task of making dinner for a family takes time and commitment, if time can be saved in making dinner the added benefit is spending the saved time towards other daily activities or family time. This process consists of preparing...

...Process Improvement Manager
MGMT 335
Unit 3 Assignment – Part 2
Abstract
This paper includes the steps to implement changes to the performance levels within a company. It will discuss tools for improving through quality improvement. It will also provide an overview of which method is best.
Process Improvement Manager
The Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence is a self-assessment for companies to achieve high performance and move towards performance excellence. It is a framework for evaluating a company’s procedures, and development towards goals and objectives. The criteria can be used for self-assessment and achievement, basis of material on handling excellence, build a mutual language on performance excellence, and monitor the expansion of processes concentrated on performance excellence. Self-assessments are used for the competitors who are motivating a need to change. For an environment that is changing or for an organization that is among the best, and wants to make sure it stays that way. For when a business is good and wants to keep it that way or when it wants to improve organizational learning. For when an organization’s standards are aligned with the Core Values and Concepts of the Baldrige Criteria or when there is a pure connection between the organization’s main issues and the Criteria’s systematic method to refining organizational performance (A Proven Approach, 2012).
The Criteria benefits a company by recognizing successes and occasions...